In these excerpts, Plato and Aristotle discuss philosophers holding political office, a governing
middle class, and the roles of citizens.
SOURCE 1:The Republic of Plato
Plato, a pupil of Socrates, was one of the great philosophers of ancient Athens. Plato’s Republic is written in the
form of a dialogue about a perfect society governed by a philosopher-king
You will see then, Glaucon, that there will be no real injustice in compelling our philosophers to watch
over and care for the other citizens. We can fairly tell them that . . . we have brought you into existence for
your country’s sake as well as your own, to be like leaders and king-bees in a hive; you have been better
and more thoroughly educated than those others and hence you are more capable of playing your part both
as men of thought and as men of action. . . . in truth, government can be at its best and free from dissension
only where the destined rulers are least desirous of holding office.
Yes, my friend; for the truth is that you can have a well-governed society only if you can discover for your future
rulers a better way of life than being in office; then only will power be in the hands of men who are
rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that brings happiness, a good and wise life. All goes wrong when,
starved for lack of anything good in their own lives, men turn to public affairs hoping to snatch from
thence the happiness they hunger for. They set about fighting for power, and this conflict ruins them and
their country. The life of true philosophy is the only one that looks down upon offices of state; and access
to power must be confined to men who are not in love with it; otherwise rivals will start fighting. So
whom else can you compel to undertake the guardianship of the commonwealth, if not those
who, besides understanding best the principles of government, enjoy a nobler life than the politician’s and
look for rewards of a different kind? There is no other choice.
Source 1
Why does Plato believe that philosophers would make the best rulers? What men would make
poor rulers?
SOURCE 2:The Politics of Aristotle
In this selection from his Politics, Aristotle examined the nature of a political community and the polis.
From these considerations it is evident that the Polis belongs to the class of things that exist by
nature, and that man is by nature an animal intended to live in a polis. He who is without a polis, by reason
of his own nature and not of some accident, is either a poor sort of being, or a being higher than man: he is
the man of whom Homer wrote in denunciation “Clanless and lawless and hearthless is he.” The man
who is such by nature [i.e., unable to join in the society of a polis] at once plunges into a passion for war;
he is in the position of a solitary advanced piece in a game of [chess]
The reason why man is a being meant for political association, in a higher degree than bees or other
Gregarious animals can ever associate, is evident. Nature, according to our theory, makes nothing in
vain; and man alone of the animals is furnished with the faculty of language. The mere making of sounds
serves to indicate pleasure and pain, is thus a faculty that belongs to animals in general: their nature
enables them to attain the point at which they have perceptions of pleasure and pain, and can signify
those perceptions to one another. But language serves to declare what is advantageous and what is the
reverse, and it therefore serves to declare what is just and what is unjust. It is the peculiarity of man, in comparison with the rest of the animal world, that he alone possesses a perception of good and evil, of the
just and the unjust, and of other similar qualities; and it is association in [a common perception of] these
things which makes a family and a polis. We now proceed to add that [though the individual
and the family are prior in the order of time] the polis is prior in the order of nature to the family and the
individual.
Source 2
Why does Aristotle believe that man is meant for political association?+